Downfall
by Muzzy-Olorea
Summary: [ME] Set after [1.03 Shanghai’d] He was her downfall.


**Downfall**

**ME Set after S1 'Shanghai'd He was her downfall. **

**_Disclaimer: My Muse, my imagination and my dreams are all mine (but can be rented for a high fee). I'm sure if I owned the cast and characters we would have an enormous amount of fun (but I don't. I'm just borrowing them). _**

**A/N:- I seriously need to stop with all these post-eps! This is seriously overly fluffy so if you're in an Angsty mood I'm not sure you would appreciate reading this right now!**

**'Downfall' – Matchbox Twenty**

She could feel his breath fall deep and even on the back of her neck and she knew for certain he was asleep. She, however, was annoyingly wide awake. Usually she would fall straight asleep as soon as she got comfortable cuddling up next to him but tonight things were different – her mind was whirling on full speed, running through the whole day in her head, analysing herself and how she had reacted, thinking about what she said and more importantly what she didn't say.

She sighed. She wasn't going to get to sleep anytime soon so she gently tried to ease herself out of his embrace. He mumbled something and rolled over still fast asleep. She couldn't help but give out a little smile: he looked very cute with his hair ruffled up like that. She slipped on her bathrobe and tiptoed across the room to her desk where she drew out her diary from her desk drawer. Then she quietly slipped out of the room and walked into the living room, switching on the lights before opening the door out onto the balcony and settling herself in her chair out there.

LA at night, strangely calm despite the faint sound of police sirens somewhere in the distance. She watched a helicopter travel across the skyline and disappear from sight before opening her journal and thumbing through the pages. It was scary how much Matt had taken over her life these past few months. Every entry in there had been about him and their changing relationship and about how hard it was to separate work from her personal life ………. She turned to today's blank page and stared at it pen poised. Some of the things that had happened today still really scared her – not because she still believed she had any reason to be jealous but because she had even been jealous in the first place……… and what she had almost said to him tonight in bed! She couldn't decide whether she ought to be more scared that she nearly said it out loud or that she even felt that way at all.

She stood back up and walked to the railings and leaning on them she looked down at the street below.

Secrets: everybody had them and Matt didn't know everything about her so why did she feel like she wanted to know everything about him? And was he being serious about when he was hinting at the fact he had started liking her practically from the moment he had first saw her?

She had been in awe of him for most of the first month they had known each other mainly because she had researched a lot of his cases in a lot of depth for her handbook and she was astounded to find that he was just as dedicated as had come across in the case reports. Then she thought he came across as quite arrogant which she later learned was just his way of getting her attention and then the fateful day that they first discovered each other …………………

"Hey."

She jumped slightly, startled and turned to see Matt standing in the doorway wearing a rumpled T-shirt and boxers.

"I woke up to find you gone, I got worried." He said, coming over to stand by her.

"Yeah, sorry, I couldn't sleep." Emily said, running a hand through her hair distractedly.

Matt ran his eyes over her and then his gaze dropped to the book in her hand. "Got all your secrets in there?"

Emily looked down at her journal and held it out to him. "You can read it if you want?" _Maybe it'll be easier you finding out through that than through me telling you._

Matt raised his eyebrows and shook his head like she knew he would. He was far too much a gentleman to lower himself to reading about her innermost thoughts and feelings. "No I would rather you tell me yourself what's up." He said, taking the diary from her and tossing it onto the chair before stepping closer, his hand coming to rest on the back of her neck, massaging it slowly.

"I don't know." She sighed, staring ahead at building straight in front of them.

"You still jealous? Look, I promise you nothing ever happened – or will ever happen – between Cheryl and I. Firstly I'm with you and secondly our relationship was never like that. Sure I said she was hot – and she is – but I only think that from an objective point of view and-"

Emily shook her head. "It's not about Cheryl."

"What is it about then?" Matt asked, moving his hand down and rubbing her back.

Emily sighed and turned to face him. "I don't know why I acted so jealous today because I'm not usually a jealous person. It was weird and I was out of control. I wasn't jealous of Cheryl because I thought you and her had a thing, I was just jealous because she seems to know you inside out whereas you and I are barely touching the surface and I know that half the fun of a relationship is finding out things about other people but I-"

"But what?" Matt asked, looking at her searchingly, trying to understand where she was coming from.

"I don't know. It's just I'm struggling so hard to keep our relationship and our work relationship separate but sometimes at work I just want to be able to have a moment with you or something but you, you seem to manage to distance yourself when we're at the office even though you're so sweet when we're alone – and I'm not saying it's a bad thing because that's how it should be it's just I wish I had that control over my emotions and …….."

"What are you saying?"

What was she saying? She knew what she was trying to lead up to say but she was so terrified of screwing up what was, essentially, the best relationship she had ever been in, that she was rambling excessively. "I don't think we're in the same place." He was looking at her questioningly, maybe even slightly disappointedly in her lack of belief in him and she found herself starting to talk again, trying to make her point without saying the words …….. "I've never been in a relationship where I want it to work so much, where I have so much riding on this being the right thing for us and I'm scared …… I'm scared because being with you scares me, in a good way, but I'm petrified I'm going to screw this up and you're too special for me to do that and, and when I'm with you, like now, I feel so out of control and, and-"

"I love you." Matt said suddenly, interrupting her.

Emily paused and looked at him. "What?"

Matt brought his hand up to caress her face gently. "I love you." He repeated emphatically.

Emily opened her mouth slightly, stunned, unsure whether she heard him right. She tried to say something but nothing would come out …………… he said it, he said what she was trying to say…..

"And I lied about saying that I decided to start keeping secrets from you a few days after we met ………… I actually liked you from the moment we first met but I decided you would probably have found that too cheesy." Matt chuckled. Then he looked at her seriously. "I know you probably think it's too soon. I mean technically we've only been dating for a week and the three months before that we weren't exactly meant to feel anything but if I'm being honest then I've been in love with you for a year so saying it to you now just feels right." Matt said stroking her cheek gently with his thumb.

Emily suddenly felt her vision go blurring and her body going numb. He loved her. _He loved her. _She couldn't remember the last time someone had said to her ………..

"Oh, don't cry." Matt said worriedly, pulling her towards him, pressing her face against his chest. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything. It's too soon and I scared you and-"

"No, it's not that." She said, pulling away slightly so she could look him in the eye. "I'm just crying because I'm so happy. I'm so unbelievably happy. You know before, with me rambling, I was trying to say the same thing but I was so scared this thing with us didn't mean as much to you as it did to me and I would scare you away and- and I love you."

Matt held her gaze and smiled, his hands running down her bathrobe.

He may be her downfall but it looked like she wasn't the only one falling down.


End file.
